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I've always been interested in writing. Often, when something interesting happens to me, or an interesting question pops into my head, my first impulse is to write about it. But really, I've only just started to approach writing as a skill that I need to work on.

So, here is one of my first attempts. I thought that using lyrics from cool songs as writing prompts would be a good exercise, and this one was inspired by City and Colour's "Grand Optimist". So check it out and let me know what you think. All criticism is welcome, and remember, I'm only just starting out!

A shattered femur, torn knee ligaments, a fractured shin. My leg didn't even hurt until after the doctors had pieced it back together. I can't remember the last time I had a good night's sleep. But that's okay, in a way. Nowadays, my dreams aren't anything like they are supposed to be. Everything has changed.

Life is full of problems. I think that how we deal with them has a lot to do with how we got to wherever we were when they reared their ugly heads. How we were brought up. We're all the products of everything--every person, place, and thing--that came before us. And I'm certainly no exception.

My mother is a disciplinarian and a hard worker. Has been all her life. Her solution to getting slapped in the face isn't to turn the other cheek. No, her solution is to mutter something vile under your breath and punch the slapper square in the face. And then, when you've done that, tell anyone that will listen what you've done. Life is a struggle for my mother. And only the meanest, scrappiest warriors can win.

When I was younger, about seven I would say, she lost her job. Laid off amidst widespread economic turmoil. She got home and took to punching walls and throwing drinking glasses. Shouting obscenities that would have made Quentin Tarantino plug his ears. I knew that she was tough, but I'd never seen her like this. It was frightening. But the next day, she decided to do something about her situation. She put on her best business suit, swooped me up, and took us downtown. I was actually pretty excited. She had always been so busy that we rarely got a chance to visit the city. But the skyline was beautiful. Few things are more wondrous to a small child than a collection of buildings hundreds of times of times taller than he is. But I digress.

My mother went into every building that had a door, armed with numerous copies of her resume, and told whoever was in charge that she would do any job available to her. A few hours and several city blocks later, and she had probably submitted at least a couple dozen resumes. And all of her hard work and rushing around paid off. She had another job within a week, performing clerical duties for a local hospital. She was even getting paid more than she was at her previous job. "You see son, life's a bitch," she said. "But you've just got to be ready to be a bitch right back at it."

They say that opposites attract, and I guess it must be true. My father was nothing like my mother. He was very religious; he read his Bible for at least an hour every day, and prayed almost constantly. "God will never put more on you than you can bear," he would tell me. "Life isn't hard when you've got Him on your side. A good prayer can fix anything and everything. But you have to trust God. That is the way." I guess it worked for him. He was never in a bad mood, and good things always happened to him. And even when bad things did eventually come his way, he would suffer them almost happily. He was the grand optimist to my mother's poor pessimist.

He managed to float his way into a position as the CFO of a local insurance company. The fast life of a corporate executive must have made our meager lifestyle seem dull by comparison. I suspect that he just got bored of me and my mother. Soon, he would fall in love with one of his coworkers and move away with her to Europe. The fast life, indeed.

So what do I do when faced with the bitchiness of life? Well, it just so happens that I've recently been dealt a pretty shitty hand. I was on the football team at my university. And I'd really been making a name for myself. I already held all of the school's major rushing records, and highlights of my games were often showed on TV. The pundits and commentators all seemed to think that I was very talented. Maybe the best running back in the country. That, if I kept my pace, I definitely had a future in the NFL.

I couldn't keep the pace, as it turns out.

One day, about six weeks ago, I was riding high. We were playing our crosstown rivals, and I was on pace to break my own single-game rushing record. And then, a crushing blow from a linebacker changed everything. Until that play in the third quarter, I had a future. But that future is just dust now. Wondering what could have been...it keeps me up at night. Eats at me until there is hardly anything left to gnaw on. But my mother is always there to keep me grounded.

The doctors say that someday, after some rigorous rehab, I should be able to walk again without much issue. But as far as a career in football...well, I can kiss that goodbye. If my father were still around, he would probably tell me that everything happens for a reason. That I just need to accept what has happened and pray that God will show me where to go from here. And for the first couple weeks of my recovery, I did just that. I prayed my ass off, hoping that I would hear something.

But all of that prayer brought no solace. I gained no strength from counting the beads on my rosary. No, my only instinct now is to fight. To go through my rehab and to become strong like I was. I've seen many players come back from gruesome injuries. And I can too. The desire to silence my doubters consumes me. I have one question for my father: who but God could have done this to me? No matter. I'll show Him. I've never been very devout, but I would gladly sit in His lap now if it got me any closer to being able to punch Him right in the nose. Funny how adversity shows us who we really are. Gets us to show our true colors.

Hey! Thanks for sharing your work. I really like the characters and the story. My only comment: Is to show not tell. You'll hear that a lot here.
The more you write, the more (hopefully) you'll perfect this ability.
You tell us about the football injury. Show us. It's its own little scene. Describe it.
On the same thread, don't tell me the mother is a hard worker and your father is religious, show me.

The descriptive aspect of writing is (not surprisingly) something I think I need to work on a lot. Do you have any helpful tips/thoughts on how to make sure you're always showing, and not just telling?

I did enjoy reading this. It's a small snippet of an insight to another life. Is any of it true? The part about the mother seems most realistic to me. I think the main thing for me was that there was really not much of a story going on for the narrator and the football star who's amazing and suddenly loses that to a hit is a bit of a cliché. Another thing everyone will tell you (if they haven't already) is avoid clichés. I honestly think you could add to this story as well. We don't really get an ending. The best part, in my opinion, is definitely the story of the mother because it seems the most real and raw--in fact, it could become the point of the story, which it sort of is, but I feel that there's so much more you could tell us about her, that you've almost glazed over this strong character who is meant to inspire the narrator. I see that you're criticizing the father as well, but we're not given much information about him either. I enjoyed this so far--but I'd really like to see it elaborated further.

I've gotten that a lot, actually, the bit about adding more to the story. I'm a philosophy grad student, and my writing tends to be really streamlined as a result. Works well for philosophy, but not really for creative writing. Most of the time when I write, the hardest thing is figuring out which parts are necessary and add to the story, and which parts are just "fluff". Similar problem for you? If so, how do you deal with it?